“Sleep will do you good.” A gentle hand landed on her curls, stroking mussed hair from her face. A gentle voice, southern to the core, petitioned, “I’m asking you not to do anything that might harm yourself or anyone else on board while I’m gone. No fires, Eugenia. Arrangements need to be made, work done, but I’ll be back by dark. If you get hungry, Joan left food in the bags. If you get thirsty, there’s water. All your things are here if you want to unpack. And I prepared a present. Several new textbooks—my personal favorites back from my teaching days—but most are medical in nature. You’ll find them in the cabinet under the bar.”
She ignored him.
Buttoning up his jeans, he said, “We can go for a walk on the deck when I get home.”
Like a dog being let out so it wouldn’t shit on the carpet.
“Change is never easy, Eugenia, but it’s going to be okay. I promise.” A kiss landed on her forehead.
And then he was gone, unlocking and then locking the door.
Dreamless sleep stole in—the kind that keeps the desperate and the broken alive. Sucking fragmented fools so deep they fought waking.
But a hand jerked her shoulder. “Young lady, that’s enough of that.”
Groggy, burrowing under the covers to escape the utter annoyance, Eugenia growled, “Go away, Mom. I’m tired.”
“And you’ve slept enough. Sleep all day and you’ll never sleep at night. So get up.” Off went the covers, the air-conditioned breeze drawing Eugenia into a hissing, sore ball. “You’re going to take a shower while I change these sheets.”
Brushing matted curls from her face, Eugenia found her wits. “For Christ’s sake, Joan, what the fuck are you doing?”
Already pulling at the bottom sheet, glaring, Joan said, “You a world of good.”
That bitch had done enough good already. “I’m tired. Go away.”
“You’re depressed and moping. And you stink. Go take a shower and cook up one of your creative comebacks. When you’re done, put on the dress hanging on the door and join me for a bowl of strawberries and a shot of vodka. Lord knows I need it after last night.” The woman kept on tugging dirty fabric, as if she’d unmade and remade this bed a dozen times, muttering under her breath, “The pair of you kids both need a hard knock upside the head.”
It was either get off the bed or be rolled off, so she moved. But she did it with several curses. All the while, watching the muttering woman continue to castigate both the captain and Eugenia.
“He doesn’t know you’re in here, does he?”
“Of course not!” Bob swinging, Joan abandoned her work to glare at the naked woman. “Shower. Move it.”
Bossy much? “I don’t know what you think you’re pulling—”
“No! I don’t know what you think you’re pulling, young lady.” Circling the bed to chastise her properly, Joan snapped, “It’s plain as day that you’re as in love with him as he is with you. He might not have figured it out yet, but don’t think you’re fooling me.”
“Excuse me?” Was this woman off her meds?
In a broad sweep, Joan pointed to the suite’s bathroom. “Stop sputtering at me and go shower.”
Fine. Shower, clean sheets, get the woman out of the room. FINE!
Walking with an embarrassing aching lady-parts gait, Eugenia abandoned the cleaning tornado to hose down.
Warm water eased hurts. Clean teeth livened the mind. Smelling like herself, and not like the aftermath of too much sex, did help.
But only so much.
When the faucet turned off and a towel hit sore skin…
Eugenia was stuck.
Stuck staring.
Apparently, stripper clothes they had by the hundreds, but regular dresses were hard to come by. Leaving her option the same blue dress from months back, bloodstain gone and buttons replaced.
There was no lacy underwear.
Which was just fine. Abused skin needed to breathe.
Red curls wet and drooping, left eye black and swollen, lip cut, bruises just about everywhere, Eugenia looked in the mirror and saw how much older she’d grown. No longer a fresh-eyed girl ready to take on the world.
Now all woman. One who’d learned that the world bit back.
Shivering in the air conditioning.
The door muffled Joan’s holler. “Are you coming, or am I drinking this vodka by myself?”
Eugenia had barely been old enough to drink when the bombs fell. And now sperm might be meeting egg in her fallopian tube where an embryo would bounce around for days on its journey to the uterus… and a midwife was offering her hard liquor.
Hard liquor Eugenia was absolutely not going to turn down.
Bathroom abandoned, she found their positioning was all wrong. Joan had taken Eugenia’s seat, leaving Eugenia to sit where the captain would sit. Not that she was going to say anything, but it felt backward.
Sitting in general felt uncomfortable.
“Drink up.” They clicked tumblers, Joan adding, “I can get you more ice if you need it.”
Swallowing the whole thing, blowing air from pursed lips, it took Eugenia a moment to ask what Joan’s expression made it clear they both knew was coming. “Can you get me off the boat?”
Topping off Eugenia’s glass with another splash of vodka, the older woman curled her lip. “Yes, but I won’t. You do test my patience to no end, but that doesn’t mean I want to see you dead. And that’s all that’s out there, young lady.”
Glancing over her shoulder out the captain’s floor-length windows to the rotting woods, Eugenia asked, “But there’s gotta be somewhere good, right?”
“You remind me so much of my daughter. She had her head in the clouds too. Such a dreamer…” A sad smile, a wistful sigh. “Avery was in LA shooting a pilot—sure she’d be the next big thing. No one who knew her would have doubted it for a minute.”
Vodka worked its magic. Or maybe it was that view, or the company, or the general fucked-upness her life had become. “I’m not sure what to say to that.”
“It’s a big ship, Eugenia.”
“Someone else phrased it in exactly those same words.”
“Tennis and basketball courts, multiple running tracks, playgrounds, three theaters, a massive promenade—every part repurposed to maintain and protect life. The conference center is now a classroom. There’s a medical bay—”
Eugenia raised her hand. “I get where you’re going.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“He forces women to have babies whether they want to or not.”
“He does.” Joan sipped her vodka.
“And you help him.”
Without a blink, she said, “I do.”
“And those little girls on board, the ones in the school or playing games with the little boys at recess, how are you going to explain it to them when they grow up and get dragged to the nightmare on Level 15? How are the boys going to feel to trade tickets to fuck their childhood sweetheart?”
“Have you ever noticed that nature tends to correct itself. Most of the babies born since the fall are female. There is almost an even spread between genders.”
That was mildly fascinating. “Those same little girls will one day grow up and be forced to carry babies they might not want. What if they’re gay?”